Giving Up Hope
by rachel2205
Summary: Spike and Dawn try to adapt to life without Buffy, little knowing what spell the Scoobies are working on... Time: start of Season 6. Spike&Dawn friendship, Spuffy tones.


Title: Giving Up Hope

For: prompt "When the world says, 'Give up', Hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.'"

Rating: fairly PG

Setting: BTVS, beginning of season 6.

Pairings: Spike/Dawn friendship, Spike/Buffy to some extent.

Word count: 1700

The poster was a black and white print of two hands, clasped in friendship or need. Beneath them was the legend: "When the world says, 'Give up', Hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.'"

Spike stared at the poster. The lights in the mall were making his eyes hurt and his skin hum. He hated fluorescents. Bloody things made him twitchy. He continued leafing through the poster rack. Here a picture of a golden beach with only one word underneath. TRANQUILLITY. The capital letters like a shout. Did people really buy into this bollocks? Spike remembered at school learning that stuff about Robert the Bruce looking at the spider. If at first you don't succeed… Well, Spike was, at the moment, feeling that if you couldn't succeed when it counted, then your later efforts were a waste of time.

A moment later Dawn appeared at his elbow, tapping her fingers lightly against the arm of his coat.

"Get what you wanted, pet?" he asked. She shrugged with one shoulder and held out the shopping bag. There was a small world of school supplies inside. They stepped out of the shop.

"No, pet," he said. "I mean, did you i really /i get what you wanted?" He raised an eyebrow at her. Dawn sucked her cheeks in and pursed her lips, then with a sigh held back her hair. A pair of earrings winked under the harsh light. "An' the rest?" Spike asked.

"How did you know?" Dawn said, unbuttoning her coat and showing the new sweater she was wearing, price tag still intact.

"Theft's got a particular smell," he said seriously, wondering if she'd buy that, seeing's how she hadn't purchased anything else. What else could he say? That he knew her better than anyone else? Even the people who were s'posed to know her best? No point. They both knew it; it didn't need rubbing in. The bloody scoobies didn't have a clue that Dawn had turned klepto, or that she was bunking off school. Spike knew, though, cos she came to his crypt when she was bored or lonely, which happened to be a lot of the time. Ever since - Ever since then, he had been looking out for her, in his own way. Which was the sort of way bloody Xander would never appreciate, but sod him. Yeah, Spike wasn't forcing the Bit to go to school. He wasn't her Dad. But he was making sure she didn't wind up drunk, or knocked up, or dead, and that was something. Couldn't explain to the Scoobies that this was the most they could hope for at the moment. They wouldn't understand.

'Sides, Spike needed a project. Someone to look out for. He'd nearly always had that. First his Mum, then Dru. 'Course they'd looked out for him, too, in their different ways, and it was the same with Dawn. She'd come to find him after the funeral, cos of course he couldn't go, it being in daylight. Spike was sure Xander had done it on purpose, picking midday as the time for the ceremony. No chance of shade at that time of day. Angel had turned up in the evening, o'course, and so Spike had stayed away. Didn't want Angel to see him at her grave. He wouldn't understand. Doubtlessly thought he was suffering the most, 'cos of his great True Love. So he'd stayed in his crypt and drunk a bottle and a half of Jack Daniel's. When she arrived he was shaking and furious, shouting at the world and at her.

"Stupid bitch," he said. "Why did you let her do it? It wasn't meant to be her."

"I should have died, then," she said, her voice flat.

"Oh, Bit," he said. "Pet, I didn't mean it."

"Yes, you did," she said quietly, and then held him as he wept, great wracking sobs shaking his body as he pressed his face into her skirt. It was the only time she saw him cry.

Fact was, Spike hated Dawn sometimes and she knew it. But never as much as he hated himself. For not being quicker, smarter. For failing to protect the Bit. "'Til the end of the world," he'd said, and that had proved to be bollocks. Men - i things /i - like him shouldn't make promises. Hope was for humans, with their sunshine and their bloody mortal optimism. The only thing hope gave Spike was disappointment. Like dreams where Buffy wasn't dead. Dreams that made him wake sweating and wishing his heart could pound in his chest, only to feel his mouth sour as he remembered the truth of things.

Tonight he was babysitting Dawn, much as she hated that word. So he said they were hanging out. She wanted pizza, with anchovies as usual. Gross little fishies, in his opinion, so he made her pick them off his half. The smell lingered, and he chewed through fish oil with distaste. Dawn fell asleep on the sofa as Spike watched an infomercial. Those things were strange, he thought. Weren't so much peddling everlasting Tupperware as dreams. Buy me, and you too will be blonde, and happy, and living in a brand new house. That's what they were saying. Buy me and hope.

Spike wasn't buying it.

From outside the window he heard the screech of tires. There was the low thrum of motorcycle engines, and a low growl of voices. He leapt up and stood by the window.

"What is it?" asked Dawn sleepily, stretching and looking up at him.

"Sh," he hissed. "Stay away from the window," he added, pressing her back into the sofa.

Of course she gave him the slip. Bloody weasel, the Bit. Always sliding out of sight. She didn't usually do it to him, though, which is what gave him pause. What the hell had been so important that she'd left him? Stupid, stupid cow. He was going to tan her hide for this. Presuming she wasn't dead already. God, let her not be dead.

It had been seeing the Bot that had done it. All torn up like that. She knew it was just a robot, as did he, but still. It looked like Buffy, and seein' her in pieces… It felt painful. Like a last link had been severed.

He walked – then ran – the streets of Sunnydale for most of the night. Tracking her scent. It was hard, though, with the flames and burning petrol and stench of demon bikers. People reckoned vampires were just blood hounds, that they could sniff out anything. Wasn't that easy, and his nerves were jangling. He kept picking up a scent that was familiar. Too familiar, and impossible. His senses were definitely off tonight, he reckoned. Wanting to smell something that wasn't there. Wanting to believe something that couldn't be. Just setting himself up for a fall again.

Thin traces of Dawn eventually led him back to her house again. He stepped inside and called her name. She answered, and relief coursed through him, reviving his anger. He slammed the door hard.

"I could kill you!" he called, as Dawn stood on the stairs.

"Spike," she began.

"I mean it. I could rip your head off one handed and drink from your brain stem," he growled."

Dawn stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She was almost trembling with excitement. Spike could almost feel her skin vibrate from where he was standing.

"Look," she said, glancing upwards. Spike looked, and saw her standing there. i Her /i . He could smell her skin.

"Yeah?" he said coldly, not daring to think, to feel. "I've seen the bloody bot before. Didn't think she'd patch up so –"

He stopped as Buffy took a tentative step down the stairs. He could hear the thud of her heart. Beside him, Dawn said something but he didn't hear it. He put his hand on the bannister to steady himself.

"You're…" He said at last. Buffy's mouth worked, but she didn't say anything. "What did you do?" he said to Dawn, glancing at her.

"Me?" she said incredulously. "Nothing. How could…" She shook her head. Buffy lifted her hands to her collar, her fingers wrapping themselves under it.

"Her hands," said Spike.

"I… I was going to fix them," said Dawn. "I don't know how they got like that."

"I do," said Spike softly, feeling a terrible rush of sympathy. Empathy. "Don't I, pet?" he said to Buffy, his voice low. She put her hands behind her back and swallowed, giving him a barely perceptible nod. He stared at her lowered head. Buffy. Alive. Here.

"We'll take care of you," he said at last. "Um, come here. Sit." Buffy let him guide her into the sitting room, her movements mechanical. On the sofa she sat with her hands balled in her lap.

"Get some things. Antiseptic. Bandages," he said to Dawn. He heard the soft step of her feet on the stairs. Even crouched before her he could barely believe she was here. Didn't dare to.

"How long was I gone?" she said at last. Her voice was hoarse, a key turning in a rusty lock.

"One hundred and forty seven days yesterday," he said at once, not bothering to hide the fact he knew it to the day. "I guess that's one hundred and forty eight today. 'Cept… today doesn't count, does it?" He swallowed. "Not if you're… really back."

Buffy didn't answer. Upstairs Spike could hear the sound of the medicine cabinet opening and closing, Dawn rifling through it fast. Buffy could hear it too, it seemed; she stared in the direction of the stairs, a pained look on her face.

"I… remembered my promise, you know." Slowly Buffy turned her head towards him. "To protect her. Not when it mattered, of course. I failed you. Failed her," he added, tilting his head towards the stairs. "But after that. Every night after that. Wish I'd been faster, cleverer, y'know. Wanted you to know," he finished, lamely.

For the first time she met his gaze full on.

"Yes," she said simply. "I know."

Spike held her gaze, and felt a tremble of something. Hope.


End file.
